More than one dead at London Bridge, police say, amid reports of stabbings in Borough Market and incident in Vauxhall
http://bbc.in/2qMbCc4_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze-1-GJXHMo_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Tell us nationality & names of these maniacs. Were they born in UK? Muslims? #MI6 recruits? Paid informants? Saudis? https://www.twitter.com/TonyGosling/status/871400071073497090_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Last edited by Whitehall_Bin_Men on Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

Let's get this right, people are being evacuated from Hotels? Safe Houses, and put out onto the street, with hands on head. Into an alleged on going potential Terror Alert?

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Police search a property in Barking
Martin Evans Nicola Harley Harry Yorke, online education editor
4 JUNE 2017 • 10:30PM
One of the three jihadists who murdered revellers in central London on Saturday had been reported to the anti-terror police on at least two occasions, it has been claimed.

A former friend of the terrorist, who was shot dead by police along with two accomplices, claimed he had been radicalised while watching YouTube videos and said he contacted the authorities ­after becoming concerned over his friend’s extremist views.

A neighbour also claimed she had contacted police in Barking, east London, after the suspect tried to convert her children to Islam and radicalise them. The man is not being named at the request of the police.

The former friend claimed he contacted police after comments the man made about other previous attacks. But he said the authorities had failed to act and take action despite evidence of increasingly extremist views.

Armed police officers patrol outside The Shard tower and London Bridge railway station CREDIT: NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP
The friend told the BBC’s Asian Network that the terrorist had been radicalised watching videos of the infamous American hate preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril.

He said: “We spoke about a particular attack that happened and like most radicals he had a justification for anything and everything and that day I realised I needed to contact the authorities.”

He added: “He used to listen to a lot of Musa Jibril. I have heard some of this stuff and its very radical. I am surprised this stuff is still on YouTube and is easily accessible. I phoned the anti-terror hotline. I spoke to the gentleman. I told him about our conversation and why I think he was radicalised.”

However, he said he was not arrested and was allowed to keep his passport. “I did my bit, I know a lot of other people did their bit, but the authorities did not do their bit,” the friend said.

How the London Bridge terror attack unfolded How the London Bridge terror attack unfolded
02:47
Erica Gasparri, an Italian mother of three who lived close to him, claimed she had reported him to Barking police two years ago, after he began “brainwashing” her children at a local park. She said she had confronted him after her two children came home and said: “Mummy I want to become a Muslim.”

She said the police had told her the information had been passed to Scotland Yard but she had heard nothing more.

Ms Gasparri said: “He was trying to radicalise the children, he would go down to the park and talk to them about Islam. He also came to the houses and gave the kids money and sweets during Ramadan.”

Anti-terror police raided the block of flats on King’s Road in Barking, where the man was believed to live with his wife and two children. Many of the locals described him as “polite and normal” and said they were shocked that he could be a terrorist.

Residents said he was a keen football fan who also enjoyed body-building at a local gym. But it also emerged that he was thrown out of his local mosque two years ago after clashing with the Imam about politics.

The jihadist was wearing his Arsenal away shirt when he and two others went on the rampage at London Bridge, leaving seven dead and almost 50 injured. All three were shot dead by armed police in Borough Market, eight minutes after launching the attack.

Early on Sunday morning, armed ­police stormed the ground-floor flat where he lived, arresting members of his family. Similar raids were carried out at other addresses across east London including in East Ham and Leyton.

Building worker Seva Litvjakovs, 35, who lives in the same block of flats, said he had been woken by the sound of the police raid. He said: “I read news reports and ­began putting together what had happened. I realised that one of the attackers looked exactly like one of my neighbours.

“I looked on Twitter and saw one of the terrorists who had been shot by police and he looked 90 per cent like my neighbour. He was even wearing the same Arsenal shirt that I had seen him in at 5pm that evening.”

Police search a property in Barking CREDIT: WILL OLIVER /EPA
The outrage began shortly ­after 10pm when the gang began ploughing into pedestrians in London Bridge in a white van. Ken Chigbo, 26, a market analyst, who was another neighbour, claimed the terror suspect had recently asked him how to go about hiring a vehicle.

He said: “I was in the process of loading up a van I had rented as we are moving house and he came over for a chat.

“He was lovely, really enthusiastic about my move and was really nice saying he wished me all the best. He said to me, ‘Oh, where did you get your van, Ken? How much is it, is it possible to get in automatic?’ All these specific questions about the van, which obviously now makes sense in my head. At the time I didn’t think anything of it.”

He said only last week he had hosted a barbecue for locals, holding it on a green and inviting all the neighbours. Another resident of the neat, modern block said he had seen the suspect attending the local mosque and was certain the dead terrorist pictured lying on the ground was his neighbour.

He said: “I cannot understand why he would do something like this. He has a toddler and a baby, it’s madness.”

Samiya Mohammed, 18, said: “He lived there for about three years and would often have barbecues and would play football with the kids in the street.

“Whenever it was sunny he would come out and buy ice creams for the kids. I cannot believe that it is him.”

But a spokesman at the local Ahlulistiqamah Mosque said he was thrown out two years ago after clashing with the Imam over the general election.

The spokesman said: “The Imam was forced to ask him to leave two years ago. He was giving a speech on the up-and-coming general election and the Imam was explaining how it was important to vote wisely. He got angry, complaining that it was nothing to do with him, and interrupted the Imam. He was then asked to leave.”

Twelve people were arrested by ­police at addresses in Barking, while during a raid in East Ham, a suspect made a rooftop dash for freedom, barefoot and in his pyjamas, as police marksmen threatened to shoot him. Shoppers witnessed five armed and masked police smash through a flat door connected to a Paddy Power betting shop on Barking Road.

Shimmy Ali, 32, who was out meeting a friend for lunch, said: “I looked and five masked men with guns were smashing into the flat. It took me a minute to realise they were police.

“A few seconds after they went in, a black man wearing a grey vest and blue joggers climbed out of the window above Paddy Power. A police marksman on the other side of the road was screaming to go back inside and saying he would shoot him.

“The man jumped on to the roof of Sam’s takeaway and then across to Barking Food and Wine. That’s where another officer managed to reach out and grab hold of him.”_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

One local, who asked not to be named, said he'd seen one of the dead killers wearing an Arsenal shirt earlier on Sunday.
He said: "I looked on Twitter and saw one of the terrorists who had been shot by police and he looked 90 per cent like my neighbour - he was even wearing the same Arsenal shirt that I had seen him in at 5pm that evening."
The man wearing the football shirt is named locally as "Abs".
He was said to have often hosted barbecues and bought sweets for local children.
Reported to be the the 'ringleader' of the attacker, he had previously taken part in a Channel 4 documentary about jihadis in the UK last year.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-bridge-terror-attack-terro rists--10562140
In 2016, he appeared in the documentary alongside a notorious preacher as they prayed to an Islamic State flag in a London park.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-bridge-terror-attack-terro rists--10559272.amp

_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Every mayor in America has now thanked Sadiq Khan for his leadership
Police have named two of the men they say were shot dead by police after the London Bridge terror attack.

The Metropolitan Police said they were Khuram Shazad Butt and Rachid Redouane, both from Barking in east London.

Butt, 27, was a Pakistan-born British citizen while Redouane, 30, had claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan and also used the name Rachid Elkhdar.

READ MORE
Hero baker fought off terrorist knifemen armed with just a crate
The Met said: “Khuram Shazad Butt was known to the police and MI5. However, there was no intelligence to suggest that this attack was being planned and the investigation had been prioritised accordingly. The other named man, Rachid Redouane, was not known.

“Work is ongoing to understand more about them, their connections and whether they were assisted or supported by anyone else. We cannot say more about them at this stage.

“Detectives would like to hear from anyone who has any information about these men that may assist them with the investigation. They are particularly keen to hear about places they may have frequented and their movements in the days and hours before the attack.

“The investigation into this horrific attack is fast-moving and complex as we piece together a fuller picture of what occurred.

“So far officers have arrested 12 people — seven women and five men — and searched six properties, four on Sunday and a further two properties today. One of the arrested men and one of the women were subsequently released.”

The UK is facing a “severe and high tempo terrorist threat”, the force said.

The three attackers hired the white Renault van used to ram pedestrians on London Bridge, according to police.

Their assault, which began shortly after 10pm on Saturday night, left seven dead and dozens injured. Some 21 people are still fighting for their lives.

michael-mimbo.jpg
Michael Mimbo was a neighbour of attacker Khuram Butt, who he knew as Abz (Lizzie Dearden )
Butt was known to his friends as “Abz”, and neighbours described him as a doting father-of-two and an Arsenal fan. They said he was friendly and polite, saying the he was known for attending barbecues, playing with local children and giving out sweets in the nearby park.

But in recent months some parents had raised concerns about “brainwashing” after their children came home saying they wanted to become Muslims.

Abz had appeared in a 2016 Channel 4 documentary about British jihadis, in which he was seen among a group of extremist praying with a black Islamist flag in Regent's Park in central London.

A former friend told the BBC’s Asian Network he had contacted the authorities after becoming concerned about Butt's extremist views.

Butt had been radicalised watching extremist videos online, he said, adding: “We spoke about a particular attack that happened and like most radicals he had a justification for anything and everything, and that day I realised I needed to contact the authorities.”

London Bridge Terror Attack
15
show all
Michael Mimbo, who lives across the road from the man he knew as Abz, told The Independent his neighbour never spoke to him about religion and politics, mainly sticking to their shared passion for Arsenal or passing the time of day at a nearby gym.

But he recalled him appearing increasingly devout in recent months, growing his beard longer and starting to regularly wear traditional Islamic dress.

“Football was his thing – when I saw that picture of him [shot on the ground] I recognised his shirt,” said Mr Mimbo. “I thought maybe he was just devoting himself a bit more and becoming more religious.

“But I never, ever would have expected this – we didn't have a clue that he was capable of this.”

A woman who gave her name as Ramona Huczko remembered Abz doting on his young son and new baby.

“He was a good father,” she told The Independent. “You'd always see him feeding his son. We're shocked that he could do this – he is the devil.”

After further arrests were made in Caledon Road, East Ham, one 22-year-old neighbour who did not want to be named told The Independent: "It sounded like an explosion".

They addded: "Then we heard bang, bang, bang, bang - it was frightening."

Ben Tamaklo, who lives on the residential street, said he looked out to see armed police swarming the street.

READ MORE
Footage of London attacker in TV documentary 'The Jihadis Next Door'
Imams refuse to perform funeral prayer for London Bridge terrorists
Britons should 'brace themselves' for more terror attacks, expert says
"We were shocked because we thought nothing was wrong in this area," he added.

Another neighbour, who has lived on the street since the 1970s, said he saw four members of a family being taken away - two brothers, their sister and their mother.

"I thought they were a good family," he told The Independent. "I talk to the dad a lot because he's from Lahore in Pakistan and I'm originally from India. I used to see him going to Friday prayers, he seemed nice."

The man believed the "religious" family had been living at the house for six to eight months, saying the mother wore full Islamic dress including a black niqab covering her face, while the brothers both had beards and all dressed traditionally to go to the mosque.

Plain clothed detectives were seen leaving the house carrying evidence bags as part of the residential road remained cordoned off, with the windows of the raided house boarded up.

It lies a short distance from a row of shops where armed police threatened to shoot a man attempting to escape out of a flat window on Sunday. He was later detained.

UK news in pictures
35
show all
Employees at a chicken shop below the raided flats described those detained as three Romanians - two men and a woman - and four black men.

Searches continued at the Barking home of Khuram Butt, who gave his name locally as Abz.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police described the investigation as "fast moving and complex" as 10 arrested people are questioned.

Seven women and five men were arrested at six properties searched in East London so far. One of the arrested men and one of the women were subsequently released.

Italian intelligence sources told the Corriere della Sera newspaper he was of Morocccan and Italian nationality.

Zaghba's Italian mother lives in the northern Italian city of Bologna, according to Reuters.

Its report said Zaghba attempted to fly to Syria last year but was stopped at Bologna airport, and that Italian authorities had tipped off Britain about his movements. He was born in the Moroccan city of Fez in 1995.

The Metropolitan Police said it was not in a position to confirm the third man's name, having previously identified attackers Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane.

Steve Hilton said the Prime Minister was "responsible for security failures" that led to the terror attacks in Westminster, Manchester and London Bridge.

He said Mrs May, who served as Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, should be "resigning not seeking re-election"._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

Quilliam can now break the news that one of the terrorists named in the horrific London Bridge attacks on the 4th of June 2017 had been previously reported to the police and counter-terrorism police by Quilliam senior staff and Head of Islamic Studies Dr. Usama Hasan.

Below are details of the interaction between Khurram Butt and Dr. Hasan:

On the 6th of July 2016, Dr. Hasan was attending an Eid al-Fitr family event with his elderly parents and 9-year-old son when he was approached by Khurram Butt who was dressed in a robe and black turban. Butt confirmed Dr. Hasan’s identity and refused to shake hands with him when offered.

Butt proceeded to go on a loud tirade against Dr. Hasan. He began by saying, “You believe we come from apes,” and then continued to verbally attack him in front of his family, saying things such as “You work for Quilliam, you take government money to spy on Muslims and work against Muslims,” “You support gay marriage,” and “How dare you come to a Muslim event, you are an apostate.”

At this point, Butt began attracting attention from other attendees at the event, who attempted to intervene. A violent scuffle broke out, and Butt lunged at Dr. Hasan twice.

It is worth noting that Butt was accompanied at the time by his wife and toddler son who was crying out for his father.

Following this event, Quilliam reported Butt as an extremist to police and counter-terrorism officials. We were informed that Butt was already known to intelligence.

It is therefore clear that at least one of the terrorists from Saturday’s attack had been directly reported to counter-terrorism police and had even openly revealed his extremist views by appearing on the Channel 4 documentary titled “The Jihadis Next Door.”

It is still not clear why Butt’s activities were not taken more seriously, and this needs to be a time of deep reflection for our intelligence agencies and security apparatus.

Quilliam Chief Executive Haras Rafiq said:

“Although the police and security services have done a great job of protecting us, on this instance, it is clear that there are questions to be answered. It’s one thing when someone from the general public reports an individual as a violent extremist, but when the world’s first counter-extremism think tank does it, it should be taken more seriously.”

We renew our call for the next elected Government to make the urgent appointment of a Counter-Extremism Coordinator serving under the Prime Minister to coordinate the government’s Counter-Extremism Policy across all departments.

Quilliam would once again like to extend their heartfelt condolences to the families of those who were killed or injured in the London attack.

London Bridge attacker Khuram Shazad Butt, also known as 'Abz', in Channel 4's 'The Jihadis Next Door' in 2016 Channel 4
The suspected ringleader of the London Bridge attack was cautioned over extremist behaviour in January, it has emerged amid questions over how the trio of terrorists were able to launch the atrocity.

Khuram Butt was known to police and MI5 after publicly associating himself with Anjem Choudary and other extremists in his Islamist network.

Having insulted a counter-extremism campaigner at a protest praising the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013, Butt was reported again to police for assaulting a moderate imam last July.

READ MORE
London attack is latest atrocity linked to Anjem Choudary's network
Dr Usama Hasan said Butt “started screaming” abuse at him during a family funfair celebrating the Islamic festival of Eid in London.

“He tried to assault me, he ran at me with an expression of hatred in his face,” he added, describing how he ran as family members wrestled Butt away from his target.

Relatives took photos of the assailant, who they did not recognise as he accused Dr Hasan of “taking money from the government to work against Muslims ... spying on Muslims” and called him an “apostate”.

by Nafeez Ahmed
Britain’s top ISIS recruiter, Anjem Choudary, protesting with al-Muhajiroun supporters outside the Syrian embassy in London. Source: Asian World
Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

The terrorists who rampaged across London on the night of 3 June were part of a wider extremist network closely monitored by MI5 for decades. The same network was heavily involved in recruiting Britons to fight with jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

Police have confirmed that Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba were the three terrorists shot dead after participating in a brutal van and knife attack in the London Bridge area.

According to press reports, both Butt and Redouane were longstanding members of the proscribed extremist network formerly known as al-Muhajiroun. After 9/11, the group operated under different names such as Shariah4UK, Muslims4Crusades and Islam4UK. Originally founded by Lebanese firebrand, Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was banned from returning to the UK after the 7/7 attacks, the network was later run by Bakri’s deputy, Anjem Choudary.
Red flags, missed

Choudary was convicted in 2016 for supporting and encouraging support for ISIS.

Yet the press has largely ignored the extent to which Choudary’s uncanny freedom to operate in Britain, and to send British Muslims to fight in foreign theatres, was linked to his opaque relationship to Britain’s security services.

Khuram Butt was known to counter-terrorism police and MI5, who investigated him in 2015. The official line is that he was deprioritised as no evidence of attack planning was found.

Anonymous British counter-terrorism sources, however, told CNN that Butt was the subject of a “full package” of investigatory measures, as he was believed to be “one of the most dangerous extremists in the UK”. After September 2014, when ISIS began calling for attacks on the West, British security services grew “increasingly concerned that al-Muhajiroun members who had remained in the UK would carry out terrorist attacks.” The sources said that “One of those they were most concerned about was Butt.”

According to the Telegraph, Redouane fought with the Libyan Islamist militia unit Liwa al-Ummah to topple Muammar Qaddafi. Libyan security and diplomatic sources told the paper this militia sent foreign fighters to Syria after the NATO-backed revolution, many of whom “went on to fight alongside Al-Qaeda extremists in Syria”.

As British foreign policy analyst Mark Curtis reports: “The Liwa al-Ummah was formed by a deputy of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the former emir of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.” Belhaj went on to become a military commander for the NATO-backed National Transition Council in Tripoli to bring down Qadafi in 2011. And in 2012, Liwa al-Ummah fighters in Syria merged with the main rebel force, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) — which received direct military and logistical support from the US and UK militaries, as well as the Gulf states and Turkey.

Metropolitan Police denied that the third attacker, Zaghba, was known to the authorities, describing him as “not a police or MI5 subject of interest.”

An Italian national of Moroccan descent, Zaghba had also come on the radar of Italian intelligence in March 2016. Authorities stopped him at Bologna airport while trying to take a flight to Turkey to reach Syria, and had passed information on his movements to Moroccan authorities, as well as MI5 and MI6 — noting that he had told authorities in Bologna that he wanted to become a terrorist.

Despite being placed on an EU-wide watchlist, he managed to enter Britain without problems.
ISIS recruiters

Several sources who spoke to me on condition of anonymity said they had known of both Butt and Redouane, describing them as notorious “trouble-makers” who were shunned by wider Muslim communities.

“Yeah, I knew these guys, they used to hang out down the road from me in Barking,” said one Muslim resident of east London. “They were known as open ISIS supporters. They used to recruit people to go Syria and fight. It was hardly a secret.”

The source was familiar with Khuram Butt but did not know the other London attackers. “He was part of the al-Muhajiroun network. They were Anjem Choudary’s boys. When the Syrian war first broke out, these guys were organising a lot of people to go there and fight. They did it under humanitarian cover, pretending they were going to give aid and stuff.”

Another source based in north London knew both Butt and Redouane as followers of Anjem Choudary. He said that they had joined al Muhajiroun after 9/11, and whenever he would bump into them they would talk “all about fighting infidel shia, they worse than Jews, etc.”

He said that they openly campaigned in support of ISIS: “Man, these guys were loud and clear. They thought of Iraq and Syria as land of the caliphate. As before they loved Taliban but criticised them for not making it caliphate. They always invited people to join jihad and Syria. Nothing new there.”
MI5’s open door

According to an investigation by Middle East Eye, from 2011 to around early-2013, MI5 operated an ‘open door’ policy for Britons to travel and fight in Libya and Syria. Foreign fighters told MEE that their travels had been facilitated by Britain’s security services.

After travelling back to Libya in May 2011, one British fighter “was approached by two counter-terrorism police officers in the departure lounge who told him that if he was going to fight he would be committing a crime.”

The fighter provided them the name and phone number of an MI5 officer. Following a quick phone call to him, he was waved through.
“As he waited to board the plane, he said the same MI5 officer called him to tell him that he had ‘sorted it out’…
Another British citizen with experience of fighting in both Libya and in Syria with rebel groups also told MEE that he had been able to travel to and from the UK without disruption.
‘No questions were asked,’ he said.”

The ‘open door’ policy was designed to augment US and British support to opposition forces seeking to overthrow Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Funnelled through our allies, the Gulf states and Turkey, the bulk of this support went not to secular rebels but to hardline Islamist groups, including both al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Under this ‘open door’, as Curtis observes, “at least one London attacker and the Manchester bomber were able to travel to Libya to fight in Britain’s war.”

Since 2011, the primary figure responsible for recruiting Britons to fight in the Middle East and North Africa was Anjem Choudary.

Of the 850 Britons who went to join various insurgent groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, most of them — fully 500 — had been recruited by Choudary to fight with ISIS. Choudary had also been linked to as many as 15 terror plots since 2001. These astonishing figures were revealed by the police after Choudary was convicted last year.

Sensitive ISIS documents corroborate the former al-Muhajiroun network’s crucial role in this British-ISIS terror funnel. The documents, leaked in early 2016, identified Choudary’s mentor — Omar Bakri Mohammed — as a sponsor of Britons trying to be inducted into ISIS.

Choudary’s role as a key instigator in the recruitment of British Muslims to join the ISIS jihad in Syria, occurred at precisely the same time that Britain’s security services were operating an ‘open door’ policy to augment the anti-Gaddafi and anti-Assad rebellions.

These activities were well-known to British police and intelligence. Earlier this year, a group of extremists connected to Choudary were jailed for supporting ISIS and urging people to fight in Syria, after a 20 month-long undercover police operation.

This raises the question as to whether the reason nothing was done to shut down Choudary’s activities was his utility to MI5’s ‘open door’ to Libya and Syria.
MI5 and ISIS recruiters, sitting in a tree

The official explanation of the failure to prosecute Bakri and Choudary for so long despite this track record is that the two were notoriously clever at appearing to staying on the right side of law. Supposedly, this meant that counter-terrorism officials found it difficult to build a case against them.

This narrative is problematic. Security sources speaking outside of official press statements have pointed to a somewhat different reality: that both Bakri and Choudary had ties to MI5.

In his book The Way of the World, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Ron Suskind recounts how he was told by a senior MI5 officer that Bakri had long been an informant for the security service, who “had helped MI5 on several of its investigations.”

Bakri confirmed the same in an interview with Suskind. “Bakri enjoyed his notoriety and was willing to pay for it with information he passed to the police,” wrote Suskind.
“It’s a fabric of subtle interlocking needs: the [British authorities] need be in a backchannel conversation with someone working the steam valve of Muslim anger; Bakri needs health insurance.”

Bakri’s ties with British intelligence to support foreign operations, moreover, go back decades.

As I wrote in the Independent on Sunday:
“According to a former US Army intelligence officer, John Loftus, three senior al-Muhajiroun figures — Mr Bakri Mohammed, Abu Hamza and Haroon Rashid Aswat — were recruited by MI6 in 1996 to influence Islamist activities in the Balkans.”

But the connection did not stop there.

In 2000, Bakri admitted training British Muslims to fight as jihadists abroad, boasting: “The British government knows who we are. MI5 has interrogated us many times. I think now we have something called public immunity.”

A year later, the private security firm set up by Bakri in cohorts with Abu Hamza — Sakina Security Services — was raided by police and eventually shut down. Speaking in Parliament at the time, Andrew Dismore MP claimed the firm sent Britons “overseas for jihad training with live arms and ammunition”. Bakri was not arrested, let alone charged or prosecuted.

In short, Omar Bakri’s utility to British state operations in foreign theatres, such as the Balkans, appeared to grant him immunity in extremist recruitment at home.

To this day, it is not widely known that Bakri and his al-Muhajiroun network played a key role in facilitating the recruitment, radicalisation and logistics behind the 7/7 London bombings. The ultimate suppression of crucial evidence of this from government narratives, despite being mandatory reading for all legal counsel during the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest, has granted the group virtual free reign.

Thus, Omar Bakri’s acolyte and deputy, Anjem Choudary, led a similarly charmed life.

Days after Choudary’s terrorism conviction, Will Geddes — a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer who had investigated Choudary — revealed that prior to the proceedings, Choudary too had been protected by MI5.

The Telegraph reported that despite being at “the forefront of radical Islam in Britain” for 20 years:
“The security services repeatedly prevented Scotland Yard from pursuing criminal investigations against hate preacher Anjem Choudary… Met counter-terror officers often felt they had enough evidence to build a case against the radicalising cleric, only to be told to hang fire by MI5, because he was crucial to one of their on-going investigations.”

It was only in August 2015, after Choudary posted YouTube videos online which openly documented his support for ISIS, that he was eventually prosecuted. Prior to that, the police believed they had a watertight case, but the decision not to prosecute had come from MI5.

Geddes himself told the newspaper:
“I am gobsmacked that we allowed him to carry on as long as long as he did. He was up to his neck in it but the police can’t do full investigations on people if the security service say they are working on a really big job, because they have the priority. That is what they did constantly. While the police might have had lots of evidence they were pulled back by the security service because he [Choudary] was one of the people they were monitoring. It was very frustrating and did cause some tension but we were told we had to consider the bigger picture.”
The bigger picture: war

Geddes did not respond to a request for comment asking whether the bigger picture might include Britain’s foreign policy goals in Syria.

According to Charles Shoebridge, though — a former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer — “nothing was done by UK authorities” to stop UK citizens “joining jihadist groups in Libya and Syria.”

This was despite the fact that these Britons “made no secret on social media of the fact, even sometimes posting evidence of their participation in acts of terrorism and war crimes.” There was an “obvious risk of terrorism blowback were such trained and experienced extremists to return to Britain.”

Shoebridge had pointed out at the time that “this ‘turning a blind eye’ was actually consistent with the UK govt position of intensive overt and covert support of rebel groups in Libya and Syria in attempting to topple Gaddafi and Assad.” Turning a blind eye, he added, was also consistent with “a long record of the UK government allowing, using and facilitating Islamist extremists to destabilise ‘enemy’ states, from Soviet occupied Afghanistan in the 80s, through Bosnia and Chechnya, to Libya and Syria today…
“It was only in 2013 when groups such as ISIS started to harm US and UK interests in Syria and Iraq, and kill US and UK citizens, that any action at all was taken to stop British jihadists from travelling, or arresting and charging those who returned. At this time it’s likely a tipping point was reached in the inherent conflict between MI6 priorities in furthering UK govt policy to overthrow Gaddafi and Assad, and MI5’s stated priority of keeping the UK safe from terrorism — indeed, it’s likely a tipping point was also reached internally within MI5 itself. In any event, from 2013 action started to be taken, which suggests government policy changed.”

The official defence for all this is that before 2013, the legislation necessary to tackle travelling jihadists did not exist. Shoebridge dismisses this as nonsense: “First, it’s been illegal to take part in terrorist related activities abroad since 2006 and, second, the new legislation introduced since 2013 has itself barely been used.”

In fact, it was only around 2014 that British counter-terrorism officials moved more aggressively to take down al-Muhajiroun.

I asked the Home Office to confirm whether Choudary was indeed an MI5 informant, and whether British authorities were aware of his recruitment of Britons to Syria — including the role of any of the London attackers as ‘foreign fighters’.

A spokesperson said: “We are not commenting on the individuals named while that investigation continues or responding to speculation.”

But if Geddes and Shoebridge are correct, then when Anjem Choudary — Britain’s top ISIS terror recruiter — was dispatching Britons to Syria, he was, in Geddes words, “allowed… to carry on” by Britain’s security services.

The decision not to prosecute Choudary was to have fatal consequences. In February, about half of the British fighters who had travelled to Iraq, Syria and Libya returned.

In November 2014, as Home Secretary, Theresa May said that JTAC, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, had raised the threat level for international terrorism from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’, indicating that an attack on the UK was believed to be “highly likely.” May’s announcement clarified that the threat level was lifted primarily due to the threat from 500 British nationals who had largely fought with ISIS:
“The decision to change the threat level was based primarily on developments in Syria and Iraq, where the terrorist group ISIL controls swathes of territory. We believe more than 500 British nationals have travelled to Syria and Iraq, many of them to fight… ISIL and its western fighters now represent one of the most serious terrorist threats we face.”
Collusion

It was Theresa May’s own ‘open door’ policy toward Britons fighting in foreign theatres which directly facilitated the expansion of this threat.

Under that policy, the chief coordinator of the British-ISIS corridor, Choudary, had active ties to MI5 which prevented counter-terrorism police officers from prosecuting him.

This draws a direct connection between Choudary’s impunity in Britain until 2015, and Britain’s short-sighted foreign policy goals in Syria.

“When the US and British militaries were working with the Turks to train various Syrian rebel groups, many military officers knew that among those we were training was the next round of jihadists,” said Alastair Crooke, a former 30 year senior MI6 officer who dealt with Islamist groups across the Muslim world. “But the CIA was fixated on regime change. We knew that even if at any moment ISIS was eventually defeated, these Islamist groups would move against secular and moderate forces.”

This collusion between Western security services and Islamist extremism, Crooke told me, has very long roots in an intelligence culture that went back as far as the 1920s, “when in the attempt to gather control of the Arabian peninsula, King Abdulaziz told us that the key is Wahabism.”

This alliance culminated in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which was “the first clear use of fired-up Islamist radicals to provoke Russia into an invasion. This set the scene ever since. From then, our intelligence services have had a deeply entwined history with Islamist groups based on the belief that Saudi Arabia had the power to turn them on and off at will.”

Islamist groups have been used by British and American intelligence services, said Crooke, essentially “to control and contain the Middle East” against different forces, Nasserism, nationalists, and more recently Baathists.

Perhaps Crooke’s most damning insight was how these operations led to British intelligence becoming heavily dependent on Gulf state intelligence services to conduct regional operations.
“In the 1980s, Saudi began paying for operations with large sums of money — which was considered acceptable in the interests of landing a blow on the USSR’s influence in the region. As a result, though, our intelligence services became increasingly dependent on Saudi funding. If they wanted to avoid Congressional or parliamentary oversight, and to continue expanding difficult and sensitive off-the-books operations, they would go instead to their Gulf partners.”

The impact of this on the integrity of the US and British intelligence community has been devastating:
“The assumption is that this doesn’t affect the integrity of intelligence, but clearly it does. The Gulf states have become paymasters for increasing expenditures on intelligence operations that the security services would prefer not be disclosed.”

This “incipient influence directly into the intelligence services”, said Crooke, is “supplemented by huge subsidies to think-tanks in Washington and London which create a specific cultural atmosphere. It has led many in the US and Europe to uncritically absorb the Gulf kingdoms’ narrative of the region — one in which it is seen as absolutely fine to use fired-up Sunni Islamism to overturn governments like that of Gaddafi or Assad, without any sort of reflection.”

For Crooke, this mindset is responsible for the persistence of such failed policies, and explains why in the early days of the ‘Arab Spring’, Western policymakers believed they could “use Islamists of all sorts as useful tools to bring about change, and that our Gulf allies could control all this.”

I asked Crooke what should be done — especially now, in the unprecedented wake of three terrorist attacks in Britain over three months:
“We should start by surfacing these matters into consciousness. Only then can we begin the conversations needed to resolve them. We need to understand that the tension between fighting a ‘war on terror’ while at the same time in some ways being in bed with terrorists, has produced a disaster.”

For Shoebridge, the biggest elephant in the room is intelligence reform: “Repeatedly, MI5 has made decisions not to deploy its substantial physical and electronic surveillance resources against extremists who were well known to it, and who then went on to commit or attempt terrorist attacks — Manchester being a prime example.”

One explanation of this, he said, could be that the decision making processes by which MI5 prioritises the deployment of its resources are “defective.” Another could be that some extremists “were actually working as informants for MI5, regarded as under control or trustworthy, and therefore not needing to be watched.”

How can we really ever know?
“Only a fully empowered and totally independent inquiry could establish the truth of the matter however — and there’s no sign that this is likely to happen anytime soon.”This is how to end Islamic State terror - and stop British foreign policy blowback

Theresa May is right. Enough is enough. A difficult and embarrassing conversation needs to be had about the fact that…
www.middleeasteye.net

“We also follow the British Gymnastics Safeguarding & Protecting People policy to meet our duty of care towards young people.”

British Gymnastics said a full background check was not required because of Youssef's voluntary status.

A spokesman said: “Firstly, we want to express our deepest sympathies to all those affected by the recent atrocities.

“I can confirm Youssef Zaghba was a member and held an introductory coaching accreditation, this means he would have been supervised at all times.

“A background check for a helper at this level is not required. He volunteered for 6 weeks, for 2 hours per week which stopped in February. At no time was he left on his own with gymnasts.

“As a police investigation is under way, we are unable to comment further.”

Catleaps Gymnastic refused to comment._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

he last couple of weeks have been traumatic for Muslims and non Muslims. A state of panic and fear has swept though communities with the tragic attacks in Manchester and London. The loved ones of victims are mourning and people are trying to rationalise why somebody would commit such dreadful acts.

The questions are many and confusion plagues people’s minds of these events. Therefore is incumbent for society to start understanding the correct narrative and apply it to the reality they live in today.

Three individuals have been identified as perpetrators of the London attack. Seven people were killed and 48 injured when these men hit pedestrians on London Bridge before getting out and stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.

One of the perpetrators was known to the MI5 and was known to police and security services. An investigation into him began in 2015, when one man called the terrorism hotline after concerns. He also featured in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, broadcast last year.

Italian police confirmed that the second attacker was stopped at Bologna airport in March 2016 when he was on his way to Turkey, due to concerns he might travel to fight in Syria.

Material about the Daesh group was found on his phone.

‘Enough is Enough’ is what Theresa May said about the action in London. However, it is Theresa May that has grossly disappointed the people of this country, London and Manchester. The Prevent agenda was promoted to ‘prevent’ violent acts, however in the space of 2 weeks, these attacks have shown how the strategy has miserably failed.

Instead of preventing violent acts, the Prevent agenda has been busy engineering suspects of peaceful Muslims. Locals authorities, Schools and the NHS have been trained in an agenda which criminalises Muslim thought, instead of targeting people who will commit violent acts.

The MI5 and MI6 knew the suspects of both Manchester and London. However for some very strange reason the perpetrators were able to obtain vans, buy materials for bomb making and everything else to commit atrocities. Everything points to an intelligence service that requires an investigation of their activity and why they are so incapable in keeping people safe.

A summary of a sophisticated analysis by the MI5, based on hundreds of case studies by the security service, says there is no single pathway to violent extremism. The MI5 report written 9 years ago, made some very interesting observations. Conveniently, every government since has ignored it.

It says that the ones that commit violent acts:

lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices.
Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts.
Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes.
Therefore, is it Islam that radicalises these men to commit violent acts, or is it something else?

The Government obviously does not value the Muslim voice, but surely it should read it’s own intelligence reports?

In fact the government is adamant, that the responsibility lies with the the community.

Flippant comments by Sajid Javid earlier in the week tried to shift the state responsibilities on to the Muslim community. He said:

“That’s why, although we all share the responsibility for tackling terrorism, there’s a special, unique burden on the Muslim community.”

It is the role of the British Government to stop terror attacks- not the Muslim community. The burden is not on the Muslims who have done nothing to contribute to violence.

‘Enough is Enough’ of the Government blaming the Muslim community, for its failings. The government has developed weak and discriminatory policies that have achieved absolutely nothing- except fear and suspicion of Muslims.

It is not Islam or Muslims that encourage these actions. Rather, the British Government needs to take a good look at itself if it wants to answer why London and Manchester have taken place. British foreign policy will be a good starting point, however it remains a taboo.

The Government has failed, Prevent has failed, the MI5/6 failed and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan failed.

The British Government has failed both Muslims and non Muslims. It cares for neither. The ‘unique burden’ and blame remains with the British Government and it’s foreign policy- not the Muslim community in Britain.

The last couple of weeks have been traumatic for Muslims and non Muslims. A state of panic and fear has swept though communities with the tragic attacks in Manchester and London. The loved ones of victims are mourning and people are trying to rationalise why somebody would commit such dreadful acts.

The questions are many and confusion plagues people’s minds of these events. Therefore is incumbent for society to start understanding the correct narrative and apply it to the reality they live in today.

Three individuals have been identified as perpetrators of the London attack. Seven people were killed and 48 injured when these men hit pedestrians on London Bridge before getting out and stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.

One of the perpetrators was known to the MI5 and was known to police and security services. An investigation into him began in 2015, when one man called the terrorism hotline after concerns. He also featured in a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, broadcast last year.

Italian police confirmed that the second attacker was stopped at Bologna airport in March 2016 when he was on his way to Turkey, due to concerns he might travel to fight in Syria.

Material about the Daesh group was found on his phone.

‘Enough is Enough’ is what Theresa May said about the action in London. However, it is Theresa May that has grossly disappointed the people of this country, London and Manchester. The Prevent agenda was promoted to ‘prevent’ violent acts, however in the space of 2 weeks, these attacks have shown how the strategy has miserably failed.

Instead of preventing violent acts, the Prevent agenda has been busy engineering suspects of peaceful Muslims. Locals authorities, Schools and the NHS have been trained in an agenda which criminalises Muslim thought, instead of targeting people who will commit violent acts.

The MI5 and MI6 knew the suspects of both Manchester and London. However for some very strange reason the perpetrators were able to obtain vans, buy materials for bomb making and everything else to commit atrocities. Everything points to an intelligence service that requires an investigation of their activity and why they are so incapable in keeping people safe.

A summary of a sophisticated analysis by the MI5, based on hundreds of case studies by the security service, says there is no single pathway to violent extremism. The MI5 report written 9 years ago, made some very interesting observations. Conveniently, every government since has ignored it.

It says that the ones that commit violent acts:

lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices.
Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts.
Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes.
Therefore, is it Islam that radicalises these men to commit violent acts, or is it something else?

The Government obviously does not value the Muslim voice, but surely it should read it’s own intelligence reports?

In fact the government is adamant, that the responsibility lies with the the community.

Flippant comments by Sajid Javid earlier in the week tried to shift the state responsibilities on to the Muslim community. He said:

“That’s why, although we all share the responsibility for tackling terrorism, there’s a special, unique burden on the Muslim community.”

It is the role of the British Government to stop terror attacks- not the Muslim community. The burden is not on the Muslims who have done nothing to contribute to violence.

‘Enough is Enough’ of the Government blaming the Muslim community, for its failings. The government has developed weak and discriminatory policies that have achieved absolutely nothing- except fear and suspicion of Muslims.

It is not Islam or Muslims that encourage these actions. Rather, the British Government needs to take a good look at itself if it wants to answer why London and Manchester have taken place. British foreign policy will be a good starting point, however it remains a taboo.

The Government has failed, Prevent has failed, the MI5/6 failed and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan failed.

The British Government has failed both Muslims and non Muslims. It cares for neither. The ‘unique burden’ and blame remains with the British Government and it’s foreign policy- not the Muslim community in Britain.

Over three successive months, Britain has witnessed a host of bloody attacks that have led to the deaths of civilians. Actions which Muslims know are a violation of the shariah of Allah (swt).

In a shameless speech in the aftermath of the London Bridge attacks, Theresa May has done what we have always warned about after such events – that politicians use such events to further their own political agendas against Islam and Muslims.

She used this speech to justify the continuation and escalation of a destructive British foreign policy and domestic policies like ‘Prevent’ – as well as to seek her long held desire for internet providers to comply with ever more-intrusive state security policies.

She followed Blair and Cameron’s hate speech – demonising Islam and Muslims with talk about the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism” – emotive catch-all terms, to justify oppressive policies.

She argued that would-be killers believe in “a perversion of Islam”, yet continues policies that effectively criminalise the teaching of real Islamic values in mosques and madrassahs. She is instead insisting that the solution is to teach secular “British values” – proving that the agenda is about an enforced assimilation, not a desire to deal with the problem.

It is our view that death and destruction continue to plague the world – not only these islands – because of a foreign policy rooted in the secular belief that man is free to do what he likes, to possess as much as he can, even if he has to colonise and subjugate others to do so. Within the same period as the tragedies on Westminster Bridge, Manchester and London Bridge, 484 innocent people were killed in a US airstrike in Iraq, and over 90 people in Afghanistan – which is so destabilised by the war on terror.

In this blessed month of Ramadhan, we reiterate our call for Muslims to remain steadfast upon their deen, despite the pressures and yet more hate speeches from politicians who sow the seeds of hatred and division.

We repeat our call for Muslims to engage with the wider society based upon our noble Islamic values – to ask them to look at this noble deen that brought dignity and harmony to so many in the world. Episodes like the latest London attacks show that many ordinary people in Britain are sceptical of Muslims, migrants and minorities being used as a political football by politicians – and are open to hearing from our community.

We are also aware that others who may be hostile to Islam, are actually victims of divisive policies that serve to demonise Islam, destabilise the world, and deflect attention away from the real systemic causes of these problems – the same secular capitalist system that has failed ordinary people pushing them to look for alternatives in the likes of Brexit, Trump or Le Pen! Mrs May may have sounded triumphant about so-called ‘British values’, but all too many people can see that these are hollow words. She talks up human rights, whilst closing arms deals with despots; she talks up democracy when members of her own party are investigated for electoral malpractice; she champions pluralism, whilst insisting Muslims must be taught her values! Like so many, she would never admit that these values have failed to successfully harmonise the countries of the Union, never mind others from different faiths and backgrounds.

Ultimately, Muslims should understand what alternative Islam can offer to the world – an example of how human beings can live together. Indeed, until a righteous guided Khilafah exists in the Muslim world, there will not be the legitimate authority to bring order to the chaos and security to those lands plagued for so long by bloodshed.

“Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever disbelieves after that – then those are the defiantly disobedient.” {An-Nur: 55}

A shorter similar video has already been put up on Tony's comment, but this is much better. Check video at 18:09, where 'multiple stabbing victim', lying prone on the ground, suddenly leaps up and runs as a police car, left without hand-brake on, rolls towards him:
'London Bridge Borough Market Hoax Fully Exposed':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNuUSbln-N0&t=336s

There are other things covered as well, like why the 'casualties' were dispersed to five London Hospitals much further away than Guy's, which is five minutes from the alleged incidents, and received none.

Whether that policeman changing into camo trousers is the guy lying 'dead' at the Weatsheaf pub isn't clear, but what a coincidence one or more cops putting on camo trousers. And the guy who took the picture of the 'dead' guy is a proffesional photographer! From the picture it seems the photographer was practicall on top of him, but the picture is lousy quality.
But one thing stands out - why did the Bill allow people to film them? The woman goes right up to them with her fancy camera, and walks past._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

Isis recruiters urged an undercover BBC reporter to launch a terror attack on London Bridge almost a year before June’s atrocity, it has been revealed.

The journalist was part of a team who spent two years posing as fictional characters online to interact with terrorist trainers on social media and encrypted messaging services.

The undercover reporter, from the BBC’s Inside Out London programme, posed as a 17-year-old boy who was living with his parents.

In conversations dating back to 2015, he used Twitter to make contact with Junaid Hussain, a jihadi from Birmingham who travelled to Syria in 2013.

Hussain was killed in a drone strike in August 2015 because of his role as a recruiter and terror instructor linked to a shooting in Texas earlier that year, as well as heading Isis’s hacking unit.

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After his death, another recruiter made contact with Inside Out‘s undercover reporter to continue the conversation and detailed a plot to assassinate a police officer, including how to obtain firearms and bullets.

“In July 2016, we discovered that the terrorist organisation was touting on Twitter and Facebook for British Muslims to stage attacks at specific London locations,” he said.

7-Junaid-Hussain.jpg
Junaid Hussain spoke to the BBC’s reporter before being killed in a drone strike
“We began conversing with one of their recruiters, who then invited us to chat privately on a secret messaging site. The authorities were fully aware of our contact with the terrorist organisation.”

In a conversation in July 2016, the reporter claimed his family were Muslim but that he “fell off the wagon” before getting “back on track” – mirroring several British terrorists who were radicalised after being involved in crime, drugs and gangs.

Three days later, the suspected Isis recruiter started asking questions about the boy’s knowledge of London and crowded places, suggesting Westminster as a potential target.

READ MORE
Last message left by Westminster attacker Khalid Masood revealed
“If you succeed, it will be huge and damaging for them,” said the Isis agent, who was reportedly known as “Manager” on encrypted messaging services.

Eight months later, Muslim convert and former convict Khalid Masood rammed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a police officer dead outside the Houses of Parliament.

His attack, the first claimed by Isis in the UK, killed five victims and Masood was shot dead at the scene.

The Independent revealed that a WhatsApp message sent by Masood from behind the wheel declared that he was waging jihad and investigations into his potential communication with Isis recruiters continue.

The atrocity was followed by a suicide bombing that killed 22 people at Manchester Arena on 22 May, and a van and knife rampage at London Bridge on 3 June.

The BBC reporter said the Isis agent named the bridge as a potential target in July last year, and gave the option “of either doing it alone or along with a team”.

London Bridge Terror Attack
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show all
“Now target setting is the thing. London Bridge – what you say about that?” a message said. “Truck, axe, anything can work.”

In December, a second Isis agent outlined how such an attack could be carried out and urged the reporter to “make the kuffar [non-believers] scared. Kill a lot. The best way you can do [it] is to kill normal people”.

He was also directed to terrorist tutorials on the dark web, including Isis videos and propaganda magazines instructing followers on how to kill people with knives, launch vehicle attacks and build bombs.

READ MORE
Police publish photos of fake suicide belts worn by London attackers
“Finally, there was a description of how to create a fake suicide vest, and how it can be used to stop the police from attacking you if you are standing next to civilians,” the reporter added.

The instructions bear a striking similarity to the attack mounted by attackers Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, who rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing pedestrians and customers at bars and restaurants in Borough Market.

All three men wore fake suicide vests, running towards armed police to ensure they were “martyred” at the end of the rampage.

Fake suicide vests were used by a group of terrorists who attacked pedestrians with knives and axes after running them over in Cambrils, Spain, last month, as well as by an attacker who stabbed eight people in the Russian city of Surgut two days later. Both attacks were claimed by Isis.

Attacks claimed by the so-called Islamic State have killed more than 340 people in western Europe since 2014, being carried out by jihadis either inspired or directed by the group.

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Eyewitness: Cambrils terror suspect was ‘smiling and taunting’ after being shot by Spanish police
Officials have warned that the threat of new atrocities is increasing as it suffers significant territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, with Isis turning increasingly to global terror attacks as a means of maintaining momentum.

While Britain and other European countries have successfully cracked down on people travelling to the group’s territories, there is growing evidence that those extremists may turn instead to launching a terror attack on home soil.

Isis has released a steady stream of propaganda enforcing its ideology and instructing supporters on how to carry out bombings, vehicle attacks, stabbings, arson attacks and hostage-takings in multiple languages, including Arabic, English, French, Russian and Turkish.

Björn Stritzel, a journalist with Germany’s Bild newspaper, carried out similar research earlier this year and published the results of extensive conversations with German-speaking Isis recruiters.

Having been introduced to agents via encrypted messaging service Telegram, he was directed to use another called Wickr.

The guidance received shows a notable change in tactics from the coordinated Brussels and Paris attacks, with Mr Stritzel being urged to be “quick to operate”.

“The more time you take the more chances there are for failure,” a recruiter said. “Please just be careful since the arrests in Germany are increasing.”

The reporter said he was repeatedly approached by at least two agents who urged him to launch an attack, giving him advice on how to word his claim of responsibility.

Mr Stritzel was urged not to build a bomb “because it is too dangerous and a small failure ruins everything” – as seen during the Spain attacks when plotters accidentally blew up a hideout containing TATP and gas canisters stockpiled for a vehicle bomb.

alcanar-house.jpg
A destroyed bomb factory used by the Spain terror cell in Alcanar (EPA/JAUME SELLART)
“We like helping,” said one message in German. “Leave the building [of a bomb]… better to hire a car or take one from someone and drive into a crowd.”

When Mr Stritzel claimed he had no passport, could not drive and was too unskilled to launch a knife attack, he was sent training videos.

In June, an alleged Isis militant who arrived in Germany in 2015 was arrested for acting as a “contact person” between the group’s Amaq propaganda agency and potential attackers.

Investigators said his contacts included an Isis supporter who carried out an arson attack on a Shia community centre in Sweden last year, and evidence suggests the group has multiple agents working in several languages to recruit attackers across Europe.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, said encrypted messaging between planners and attackers had been used ahead of several recent atrocities.

“That I am afraid is common throughout every one of these incidents and there is also a role of watching videos online to either prepare themselves or train themselves,” he added.

“I think that they are both, I am afraid, current occurrences in these terrorist attacks.”

The Government is intensifying efforts to remove extremist propaganda from the internet, taking down 250,000 pieces of data or videos so far.

Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other technology firms have been working with governments across the world to limit the use of their platforms.

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